SA public servant avoids jail over fraud

A greedy public servant who paid for her lavish lifestyle with money stolen from victims of crime has been spared jail.

Andrea Ruth Lowe, 30, was an assistant to South Australia's police minister in 2012 when she deleted incriminating emails relating to her husband's elaborate scheme to defraud the Victims of Crime fund.

She pleaded guilty to impeding an investigation into the $1.1 million fraud ring, which Nicholas Wayne Lowe devised while working as clerk in the state's Crown Solicitors Office.

In the SA District Court on Thursday, Judge Paul Muscat suspended a 14-month jail term he imposed on Andrea Lowe.

Judge Muscat rejected Andrea Lowe's claims that she had no knowledge of the fraud, saying she had spent money siphoned by her husband on luxury holidays and shopping sprees.

But she had already paid a heavy toll for her crime, which destroyed her previously successful career as a public servant, the judge said.

"Pure greed was the motivating factor behind all of your offending," he said.